Race and Identity Crisis in Philip Roth’s The Human Stain

Abstract

The Human Stain is the story of a passing Jew who struggles all his life to escape the humiliation of being a “colored” man. The protagonist wants to find solution in passing and ultimately gets trapped in his own scheme. The identity he wants to throw away into oblivion, ironically, always lives in the depth of his heart. Coleman Silk is the product of racism in this novel. In his whole life, he wants to slip the punch of racism which results in his decision of passing as a Jew. The characters in the novel take passing or identity change as potential emancipation from social humiliation or a kind of way out which lets them enjoy the privileges and comfort of society. However, that decision of identity change creates a dilemma, an identity crisis in their mind which eventually proves fatal for them.